


Mend

by Anuna



Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Crossover, Drama, Elizabeth is not happy about how you left her behind, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix It Fic, Mind Manipulation, Nanotechnology, Past Abuse, Vala is queen of everything, nanite!Elizabeth, secret santa gift
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-09
Updated: 2013-01-09
Packaged: 2017-11-24 07:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/631822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anuna/pseuds/Anuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for daxcat79, for be_compromised Secret Santa exchange. </p>
<p>Ever since she was saved from the Replicators, Elizabeth Weir is living under watchful eyes of Stargate Command and their scientists. A series of dangerous events convinces Elizabeth to contact The Avengers, while people on both sides are in danger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [daxcat79](https://archiveofourown.org/users/daxcat79/gifts).



_Two years ago_

The knocking was constant and stubborn and Elizabeth realized she wouldn’t be able to ignore her guest.

Not really a guest, she thought, because it was one of those things she was ordered to comply with, and sometimes she just decided to be difficult. She usually wasn’t, because her life had been something completely different, purposeful and filled with responsibilities, and there was a way to use her stubborness to reach her goals. Worthy and valid goals, goals that brought her on the top of the game. It was the distant past now, because she lived behind this door, anonymous and hidden from the world, and only allowed a semblance of normalcy because that was right. That was human. They owed her too much, to hook her up to a machine and trap her mind in an illusion created by a computer. 

Sometimes Elizabeth wondered if that would have been better. 

Sometimes she wished Rodney McKay just let her die. 

Right now she wished Vala Mal Doran would just leave. Except she wasn’t going to. 

“Elizabeth! Come on, girl, open the door! I will be here all day long, honey, and this pie is going to get cold,” she called from the porch and Elizabeth sighed. She went to the door and opened it and there was Vala, flashing a brilliant smile, complete with pigtails and a tray in her hands and it actually hurt inside Elizabeth’s chest. 

“Pardon my honesty, but you look like hell,” she said when she took in Elizabeth’s appearance with exaggerated disapproval on her face. “Did you even brush your hair?”

“I did,” Elizabeth chuckled, despite her mood and Vala shook her head as she entered, walking like a queen. 

“I don’t believe you,” she insisted. “You’re a victim of self neglect and it’s a good thing I’ve come to the rescue.”

“Really?” 

“Really. We can’t have this,” she decided, hands on hips, standing in the middle of Elizabeth’s kitchen. 

Elizabeth didn’t cook. The only thing she did make regularly was coffee, and she made it because she still enjoyed the taste. She didn’t need food, though; she didn’t _need_  coffee or apple tart or other things that Vala brought each week. (She didn’t need Vala, she didn’t really need  _anybody_ , because her entire life was like a recording in her head. One she could pause, rewind, and replay moments of her life and experience them again, exist in them. But not live. Never live them again, and in a way it wasn’t life. She wished sometimes Rodney never reanimated her, she wished he simply let her die, and in some way she thought she wasn’t even alive any more.) 

Elizabeth certainly didn’t need a better hairdo, but once Vala put her mind to something, she usually found her way to do it. If that meant cutting Elizabeth’s hair, then her hair was bound to be cut off and styled according to Vala’s idea. 

“Bangs?” Vala asked, scissors in one, and a strand of Elizabeth’s hair in other hand. Elizabeth looked at her expression and thought how she could do all of this and even more just because she was a self programmed machine, one that didn’t age and didn’t need sleep. (One that didn’t need friends, or sweets, or being pretty, because she was a machine, and not human any more). She could easily reprogram her hair, her skin, her complete appearance. 

“Elizabeth,” Vala’s hand paused and then she started to stroke her hair, to smooth it down and it reminded her of almost forgotten times, of being a little girl whose grandmother combed her loose curls. She met Vala’s eyes, uncharacteristically deep and serious. It seemed like they connected, right there in the mirror. Vala was always breezy, always cheerful, a deception and self defense and possibly, the role she needed to play to stay sane, but this Vala right here, the one in the mirror, she seemed like flesh and blood and pain, something  _real_ , something Elizabeth ached for. 

After she was released from Area 51 (after a team of scientists were convinced that she wasn’t a ticking timebomb, and that she could control herself and handle herself), she was given this house. Her schedule was precise and strict and there was a checkup every week, Doctor Greyson every week at Cheyenne Mountain, and she knew and felt how people looked and stared at her as she passed the corridors and rooms to reach the sterile, highly secured lab. 

And then someone figured out she could use some company. She might need actual social contact, a companion, an imitation of friendship. 

Unfathomably, Vala volunteered. 

“Why do you do this?” Elizabeth asked and Vala busied her hands, lowering her eyes. 

“Because you need it,” she said. 

“I can grow the hair back overnight, Vala,” Elizabeth said, realizing it was unfair, but everything and everyone was unfair to her as well. 

“I said, I’m doing this because you need it,” she repeated, looking back up and to Elizabeth’s expression, searching her eyes in the mirror. 

“I don’t —” 

“Yeah. Save it. I’ve been there, honey,” it was Vala’s voice and Vala’s face, but a new, unknown Vala that looked back at her; one that looked incredibly more serious than the always cheerful woman who kept visiting her for two months now. 

“We’re not friends, Vala. You barely even know me,” Elizabeth begun, but Vala was shaking her head and there was a sad look in her eyes. 

“It’s true.... and it won’t change unless you let me.”

Elizabeth smiled bitterly. 

“Why?”

“Why not?” Vala replied promptly. 

“Because —” Elizabeth’s voice caught and Vala held her gaze. 

“Because you’re a monster? A machine? Because you’re dangerous and can’t be trusted, with all those tiny machines inside of you?” Vala supplied and Elizabeth was going to say something, something smart, something to point out how dangerous it was, could be, but Vala didn’t allow her to voice those thoughts. “I had a Goa’uld in my head. For years people looked at me like I was a monster, and even I saw one when she looked at the mirror, and I stared at  _my_  face. And then, when I was set free I realized she would still own me and my life if I thought that it was me. I may not be a good person, but I am not her.” 

They stared at each other stubbornly and Elizabeth felt her chest deflate, felt her lungs fill with sorrow and longing and things she wanted to stay away from. 

Finally; Vala looked back at Elizabeth’s hair. “This is just disastrous,” she stated firmly. “We can’t have this, honey. This is a perfect waste of your good looks,” she said and Elizabeth smiled a little, bowing her head and accepting this. 

The haircut was more frilly than what Elizabeth usually wore, but she decided to keep it the way Vala did it nevertheless. 

*

_Five days ago_

“I can’t let you inside, ma’am,” the soldier looked at her respectfully, but she could almost smell his fear. 

“That’s fine. Can you call Colonel Mitchell,” Elizabeth said with more calm than she truly possessed as she took in the front side of the house. It looked inconspicuous and calm, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. 

It certainly didn’t look like a place where Doctor Gerald Greyson was killed last night. The soldier who stood in front of the door was a tall young man, but still not a match for Elizabeth if she chose to use her unnatural, nanite-induced strength. He debated her request and then activated his radio, asking for the Colonel’s presence. 

Mitchell appeared after two minutes and when he saw her, he didn’t look surprised. 

“Elizabeth,” he said, and for the most part he looked like he wasn’t afraid. Which he probably wasn’t, but things had changed. She could tell that he wasn’t going to let her inside, she knew she wasn’t a part of the team any more, but something all of them had to manage. A situation, a problem. “What are you doing here?”

She wished she could put her thoughts into a single look. He was apologizing with his eyes, with his entire body language and she shook her head. 

“You need me here,” she said.

“Elizabeth, I have an entire team working on this. In fact we have --” 

“What? You have what?” she asked, trying to read him, but his expression was closed off. 

“We’re handling this,” he said evenly. She snorted, because it wasn’t a game, because the man someone presumably killed had too much, way too much information about her. 

“Do I need to remind you of everything this man knew?”

“I am well aware of everything he was involved in,” Mitchell replied and before she could answer someone else showed up at the door. 

Someone she really didn’t need to see and didn’t want to see. 

“Elizabeth,” John Sheppard said, and the way he said it made her breath catch. She took a deep breath and tried to compose her thoughts. Some things were not taken away from her, and maybe that should have been comforting. 

“John,” she forced a smile and looked him in the eye and saw the same shades of guilt on his face, recognized them and stopped herself from speaking. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said as his eyes darkened. There was always a connection between them, for almost as long as she remembered; he read her well and she could read him in return, and that, too, hadn’t changed. He was feeling guilty and she was feeling angry and they were not talking about it. “It’s too dangerous,” he added and he almost believed that. She could tell. He believed he was protecting her. 

Even Mitchell shifted uncomfortably and she raised her chin a little and frowned, because she didn’t need them to protect her. She was far more dangerous than the two of them combined, and they knew that. Someone else would have called this bullshit. 

 

“Whatever happened here is far more dangerous than the fact that I know about it,” she said. 

“Speaking of which —” Mitchell started and Elizabeth shook her head. 

“He was scheduled to meet me today,” she offered as a way of explaining. 

“That doesn’t explain —” 

“It’s not as important as other things, Cameron. The fact that I can help you with this is far more important right now —,” she said and looked at both of them. Both of these men used to trust her. Now both of them probably thought she was dangerous to herself and should have been fixed, helped, and until then? Kept out of the way? Elizabeth knew John well, she knew his intentions were good, and his heart was probably at the right place, but she didn’t need this. She needed honesty, she needed him to face her and tell her that he screwed up and was sorry, but that he was leaving it all there. Picking himself up and carrying on. 

And for a moment, just for a moment it looked like they might give in. 

Which they didn’t. 

“We have orders, Elizabeth,” John said softly, but his words felt like a slap across her face and she nodded. She knew a dead end when she saw one, which meant she would need a detour, and need it fast. 

Half an hour later she was calling Vala, instructing her what needed to be stolen. There was almost no need for convincing. Twenty minutes after that Vala called her back to tell her that Rodney McKay and John Sheppard were kidnapped, and Cameron Mitchell was injured. 

Everything they found in Greyson’s house, all the evidence material,  _everything_ , was stolen as well. 

Suddenly, she felt like a ticking bomb, a trigger someone could pull from far away, and then, she thought no. And she decided nobody was going to stop her; not the machines in her blood or the people who believed she was one, a puppet on strings anyone could pull, if they knew how. 

(Rodney knew how and someone took him. Someone took him and John,  _someone_ out there wanted  _something_ , and it lead straight back to her, it had to.)

She walked into SGC with head held high and demanded to see Colonel Mitchell and General Landry, and they would have to realize that she was their best chance right now. 

She had enough — enough of everything. 

 

*

_Two days ago_

Natasha woke up coughing and shaking, feeling an itch all along her skin. She was cold, except she felt like she’d been drenched in hot water, almost like she’d been burned all over. Clint was asleep beside her, dead to the world, still looking tired after a full day of training and not enough sleep ever since the mission. The mission, she thought and did her best to push it all back. She peeled the covers away, left the bed soundlessly, and he shifted, hand blindingly searching for her. She held her breath for a moment and stood there, simply looking at him. She didn’t want to leave him, she didn’t want him to lose, to be left behind, but her every waking hour felt more and more like a goodbye.

She didn’t want to disappoint him. He believed in her, believed she was strong. (They all did; Bruce, Steve, Thor, even Tony. She didn’t want to leave them either, but she felt, with more certainty after each passing hour that her mind was leaving her). 

First it was just nightmares; a blur of colors and sounds and nothing out of the ordinary. (She had nightmares. She could handle nightmares). 

But it didn’t stop there. Dreams progressed, from those that jerked her awake to the worst ones, ones that sent her screaming and Clint would sit up next to her, pulling a gun first and then pulling her to him, after he realized it was her. It started happening every night, not always with screams, but she had to get up, get away from him, let him have some rest. He was no good like this, constantly on the watch for her and unable to help her. 

But it was not all. It started happening during the day —voices, faces, names; names she did not know, things she did not remember, at least not consciously. A white dog and a man named Simon, a woman with dark skin and a honey smile; metallic hallways and large windows erupting in an explosion, throwing her to the ground. Men, cold men with empty eyes and cold hands, cold, metallic minds that pulled her and took her and a hand that dragged her behind and a dark haired man that took a shot at her, no, at the man dragging her and she looked at his face (so so familiar) as he asked if she was okay ( _No, but I will be_ ), and it almost slid into place. 

Except it didn’t. 

Except she had to get it out of her, whatever it was, from under her skin and she cut her hand bad enough for Clint to shout for Bruce into a comm link, but when Bruce arrived running her hand had healed. 

“Nat,” Clint’s voice was soft as she stood in the kitchen, trying to warm herself with a glass of milk. (Nothing could warm her. Nothing could sort her out, she was going crazy, she was losing it, they got to her, they gave her something, she felt it, felt the needle, and she was fucking losing it.) “Nat, hey,” he was right behind her, still talking softly, although his voice was a bit firmer, a solid thing in her mind. He touched her shoulder, steady, powerful hand grounding her and she could feel his chest behind her and all she wanted was to cave, turn around and fall against him. But if she couldn’t stand on her own, if she couldn’t put herself back together she would become a liability, to him, to everyone else. “What’s wrong?” he asked and she just shook her head. 

“Nothing,” she tried even as his hands went to her hips and held her against him. 

“You’re a remarkably bad liar,” he said, kissing the back of her head, “when it’s about your well being.”

She shook her head and tried to come up with something assuring, but there was nothing except the fear to fall asleep and the fear to stay awake, to be ambushed with memories she didn’t remember creating.

“This isn’t normal, Clint,” she said and felt how he leaned his chin on top of her head, pulled her flush against his front and they fit together. She sighed in relief, holding onto his hand and fearing it wouldn’t be enough this time. “This —” 

“Shhh,” he soothed like he knew, like he always did and she tried her best to trust him. “Bruce said something about your nanites. That they’re more active than usual.” 

“That can’t explain this.”

“It can explain your hand,” he said steadily, putting pressure on her shoulders until she turned around to face him. She tried to avoid his eyes but he removed her hair from her face, gently, and lifted her chin. 

“It can’t explain everything else,” she countered. 

“We’ll figure it out,” he said and pulled her against him. “We’ll figure it out and we’ll fix this —” 

 

“Clint I am — I fear I’m losing my mind,” she stammered against his chest and felt how he was shaking his head, holding her to him like he could push her inside of his chest and keep her there.

“Nat, you’re scared. Something's going on and you’re scared and it doesn’t mean you’re losing it,” he said softly. 

“Clint, I’m seeing things! Hearing things —”

“And they would do that to you, to mess with you, right? They would do what you’re afraid of, wouldn’t they?” 

She nodded, because it made sense, because she wanted him to be right. 

He held her, steady and soft at the same time and it felt like the feeling of him, familiar and good, could chase everything bad away. 

“They’d want you to think you’re … going crazy. But … You’re not alone any more,” he said, kissing her slowly and softly everywhere he could reach. “You’re not alone.”

 

*

_Present time_

The guy on the bed started to stir and wake up.

She remained seated in her spot and focused on the man in front of her, who, just as she expected, tried to move and found out he was shackled to the headboard.

“... the fuck,” he groaned. She expected that too. 

“Well, hello, sweetheart,” Vala smiled, moving in her chair. She crossed her legs and let her prisoner take a good look at her, because a nice pair of legs were a distraction at least. “Nice to see you're awake,” her smile was bright and fake, but she knew how to play this game. Something was telling her, however, that this wouldn't go as smoothly as it started.

“Who the hell are you?” he tugged at the cuffs tying him to bed. “Where the hell are my pants?” 

Well. She hoped she was better than “hell”. 

Vala let her grin brighten. He seemed fond of curses, but then, he must have had a bad headache. Goa’uld devices coupled with Replicator hand interrogation probably weren’t very pleasant. “You don't need them right now,” she said, getting up and bringing her chair closer to him. “What you need is to talk to me.” Because a nice conversation was good against headaches, wasn't it?

He just gave her a look. A very incredulous and an unfriendly look. 

“Oh, I see,” Vala said. The secret agent types, she thought. They always thought no information could be gained from them, and they were wrong, wrong, wrong. “Doesn't really matter. You can always listen if you’re not inclined to talk,” she decided, taking a seat at the end of the bed. He wasn't really attractive (why did Elizabeth describe him as attractive? Vala always thought Elizabeth had a good taste in men, if Colonel Sheppard was any indication — and really, nobody would convince her they were just friends); but this one was strong and reasonably handsome. Just reasonably, not terribly — he was rather short, but his arms were probably something to look at. Maybe she should have taken his shirt instead of his pants, or maybe both. “You're probably wondering why you're here,” she lifted up a keychain with several keys on her pointing finger and dangled it close enough to see his fingers twitch. He didn’t like being helpless, he didn’t like being exposed. He wouldn’t do good in the front line of the battle, he was a guy for the shadows. 

She decided she liked that idea as she took a seat at the end of the bed, near his bare feet.  _Nice_  feet, for a guy. 

“No, actually, I get kidnapped every week,” he answered sarcastically.

“I would believe that,” Vala snatched the keys in her hand. “Considering your job.”

He flinched. Very very briefly, and someone who wasn't her probably wouldn't notice.

“Ah. We're having a conversation now,” she decided and leaned back against the other board of the bed. “Also, your girlfriend. Forgive me, but she doesn't seem like a conversationy type,” she said and he gave her a look that could be classified as a glare. “The red one, love,” she added as if it was self explanatory when it wasn't. “There's a man in you after all,” she said pleasantly, giving him a Cheshire grin and wondering just how dangerous he normally was. Probably very dangerous, but she always liked to mess with the best. 

“What do you want?” he cut to the chase, and she liked the attitude. There was _something_  about him that she instantly liked, and it wasn't his looks.

“I'll tell you first what I don't want,” she said.

“Interesting approach.”

“I'm an interesting lady.”

He tugged at his restraints again. “I bet.”

“I don't want to hurt you. Actually, I don't  _plan_  to hurt you,” she said evenly.

“Well, that's priceless,” he said.

“I'm really sorry about your head, darlin'. That was necessary,” she added with a sigh.

“Oh, I'm convinced.”

“I bet you are. I can do all kinds of sneaky things, but I doubt I would win a hand to hand fight against you,” she answered. He seemed fun, but there was not enough time to carry on with it. “Look, honey. I know more about you than you would like, which is something I can completely understand,” she added some empathy to her voice, but not too much. She wasn’t terribly empathic. That didn't soften him at all, and she approved, even though it meant her job wouldn't be easy.

“No shit.”

“Your friends are in danger. Your buddy Stark is swimming in hot water, but I would be really worried for that lovely redhead if I were you.”

He looked at her like he wanted to say something, but he didn't.

“Why should I believe a woman who.... apparently knocked me out and tied me to a bed?”

“Well, you could have done a lot worse, honey,” she said. “I understand why you don't believe me, but then we'll just have to do without your help.”

Or agreement, she thought.

“Oh how  _wonderful_.”

“Do you know what nanotechnology is?” she asked now, her tone turning more serious. He remained quiet but there was a shift in his expression. He heard of it, she assumed, but he probably didn’t know much, or rather didn’t know enough. But there was something itchy in his expression, a tightness around his mouth. “I’ll go with a theory someone told you it’s dangerous.”

“Are we here to discuss... theoretical technology?” he asked. 

“Oh love. And I thought you weren’t naive,” she smiled amusedly, leaning forward and running a fine fingernail along his leg. 

“Let me use your reversed approach and tell you what I am — I’m pissed,” he said. 

Predators, she thought. Didn’t they call him Hawkeye? Predators enjoyed playing with their food before eating it, but he wasn’t a predator in a way she was. He was simply a hunter. You sent him to do something, and he did it, without leaving a mess in his wake. Just very clean, very precise cuts.

“You are one of the highest ranking SHIELD agents. Yes, love, i am aware of its existence. Your security clearance is pretty high, but sadly, if SHIELD has information regarding nanotechnology and certain Russian secret agency which might or might not be interested in it —”Vala looked at him and noticed how he tried very hard to keep his expression calm and contained — “you’re just not important enough.”

“What the fuck are you saying?”

“You and your team of extraordinary friends rescued your girl last week, didn’t you? Not really usual for a person like her, to be knocked out like that, isn’t it, Barton?” Vala said and she could see how his face gradually lost its coloring. She looked at her hands and forced thoughts and memories to stay hidden as she concentrated on him and let her bravado drop. “Yet your medical staff didn’t find anything out of ordinary. Except her nanites. The ones that Red Room gave her. Am I right?”

“How... how do you know that?” 

“You told us,” she looked at him steadily and seriously, deciding it was the time to show him she was serious and deadly, just as he and his friends were. And they better be, because if Elizabeth was right — “look. You can be pissed at me or anyone later. The thing is, people are in danger right now —”

“And I should trust a person who forced information out of me?” His voice was close to a hiss and she could understand. She could. She’d been  _there_ , longer than he had been. 

“You’re not the only person here whose body and mind were hijacked by a volatile, sadistic, tyrannic alien creature,” she said before she could think better of it. His face was steel but his eyes looked painful. “Yes, we got information against your will but nobody made you hurt anyone and it won’t happen, actually the last thing we want is someone to get hurt in the first place —” 

“We? Who is  _we_  you keep talking about?”

She opened her mouth but before she could say anything the door unlocked and she could hear Elizabeth’s voice behind her. 

“Maybe it’s better if I take over, Vala,” Elizabeth said. Vala got up and she could see the look on the agent’s face when he set his eyes on Elizabeth. To Vala she was just Elizabeth, but to many other people she was the famous US diplomat who was missing, presumably killed on a classified mission. 

“Well, shit,” Clint Barton said and shifted. The discomfort on his face was telling, just like something else Vala couldn’t quite identify. Elizabeth crossed her arms over her chest.

“If I remember correctly, you told me once that you don’t forget faces,” she said. “I suppose it’s a useful trait for a marksman.” 

“It sounds like something I would say,” Barton replied. “Pretty impressive memory there, considering I was just a hired gun on your security detail.” 

Elizabeth arched her eyebrow. 

“Memorizing facts is a useful thing for a diplomat, Agent Barton. And I disagree. You weren’t just a hired gun.” 

He held his expression schooled but he probably knew he was caught in his bluff. That, and Elizabeth did have an unfair advantage. “While I was negotiating the release of an American activist, you were after something entirely else. Or, should I say, someone,” Elizabeth ventured further into the room. “And no, I wasn’t aware of it at the time.”

“Why do I have the feeling I am being set up here, Doctor Weir? It’s Weir, is it?” 

Elizabeth’s mouth quirked. “If I recall correctly, all of you used to call me Doctor _Weird_.”

“Again, that’s a pretty impressive memory. We’re talking about something that happened …”

“ — ten years ago,” Elizabeth supplied. “It’s interesting how that story isn’t finished yet.”

Elizabeth walked to the chair Vala was occupying previously and took a seat. Barton seemed more interested than irritated right now, but that was Elizabeth’s usual effect on people. She knew how to captivate attention and keep it where she wanted it; she had the impact without the need to irritate someone or press their buttons to gain answers. 

She thought of how Elizabeth had been treated for the past two years and felt angry all over again. 

“Human memory is always flawed,” Elizabeth said. “Human beings are flawed by design,” Barton look confused, but Vala knew why she said it the way she did. She noticed the lack of we in her words. “Would you agree?”

“Are we having a philosophical discussion now, Doctor?” Barton tugged at his restraints. 

“Not really. Though I wish this was in the realm of philosophy and science fiction,” she said. He snorted. 

“Can we get to the point here?”

“Of course,” she said. “Human beings usually don’t remember these kind of details. Machines, however, can be programmed to retain information for long periods of time. Even to retrieve them, and then retain them unchanged. Something like digital photographs,” she leaned slightly forward and it seemed she had Barton’s complete attention. 

“What exactly are you telling me, Doctor?”

Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly and took a breath. Then, her eyes were steady and determined, and she was again the woman who led an entire city, not someone whom Stargate Command kept locked away and forced to report in every week.

“The thing you’re most afraid of, Agent Barton,” she said. 

“I don’t like this,” he looked like he was trying to retreat, but he had nowhere to go. 

“I’m certain you don’t. I like it even less, because there are lives at stake. Someone’s been stealing nanite technology, Agent Barton. You’re familiar with the term, I assume?”

This time around he was quiet, but his expression was telling. “This time around it’s a different kind of nanite technology than what was used on your friend Natasha. She is, I assume, the person you were after at the time when we first met.” 

Vala noticed the change in his eyes when Elizabeth used the name. 

“Yes,” he said. 

“People like those who run the Red Room don’t like when their property is stolen from them,” Elizabeth said darkly. 

“They didn’t even try to take her,” Barton said. 

Elizabeth smiled, but there was no warmth in her eyes. Vala took a deep breath and thought of Teal’c, of Ba’al and the man who harbored the Goa’uld through an unnaturally long lifetime. She thought of Que’tesh and that girl she was, the woman she could have been if she didn’t so accidentally crossed Que’tesh’s path. 

“Why drag the machine of war along, if you can simply flip a switch, Agent Barton? If you can order it into war and it would listen to you?” 

Barton didn’t say anything. Elizabeth did. 

“Please, Vala, untie him, and give him back his clothes and his shoes.”

 

*

Flip a switch, he thought. He fixed his tie and unwillingly offered his hand to a woman who somehow knocked him down and tied him to a bed while he was unconscious. Clint didn’t trust her, and he wasn’t sure he trusted Elizabeth Weir either, but there was just too much coincidence and too many things she knew, too much of it just to be random noise he could dismiss. The hallway of the Stark Tower was dimly lit and Clint’s eyes stayed ahead of them. 

“It’s clear,” Elizabeth’s voice cut next to him, and as far as his senses could affirm, she was right. 

“I don’t recall this as a requisite trait for a diplomat, Doc,” he said, carefully leading the strange-named woman on his arm. 

“That’s because I’m not a diplomat any more,” she answered. 

“I’m not sure I really want to hear more,” he said. “But I don’t like shooting blind, so to speak.”

“Understandable,” Elizabeth answered. “I’ll answer all of your questions.”

They walked as quickly as it was possible, without looking suspicious. Clint was acutely aware of his gun, tightly strapped under his right arm and wondered if two women in pretty gowns had any weapon on them. He also wondered if they really needed them. 

“How do you know about Red Room and —” 

“And Natasha Romanoff?” Elizabeth said and he nodded. “Classified intel. I used to work for an organization that’s equally shady and dangerous as yours.”

“Let’s not forget equally powerful,” Vala added.

“You’re not the only one with a coverstory,” Elizabeth said with a hint of mirth. “SHIELD is not the only organization that would like to take Red Room out of the equation. They have taken something incredibly dangerous now —” 

“Nanites?” Clint supplied. They rounded a corner and started walking toward an elevator, talking in hushed tones because there were people in this hallway. Clint offered his free hand to Elizabeth. 

“Yes. But not just any kind of nanites,” she glanced at him. “These nanites are alien made.”

“I’m a huge fan of alien technology,” Clint said with a bitter hint in his voice.

“I’m aware of that,” Elizabeth said. 

“Are you now?” he glanced at her pointedly. 

“I’m not a fan of what that same technology allows me to do,” she said with a perfectly straight face and Clint kept walking forward on sheer power of will as his mind caught up with the meaning of her words. “Which explains why I’m not a diplomat any more, Agent Barton. I was involved in dangerous things on a dangerous mission. I was....” she looked briefly at him. “I think you would use the term compromised.”

“I think it’s a fitting description,” Vala supplied. “Shouldn’t we stick here for a moment?” she said then, looking around the lobby that opened toward the main gala - room where Tony’s grand Christmas party was being held. 

Elizabeth nodded. A waitress with a tray passed them and three of them accepted offered glasses. Clint took a small sip, champagne certainly wouldn’t help the mess going on in his head right now. Frankly, he would prefer something stronger, but he needed to stay sober and alert, but also to keep up an appearance. 

“Are you saying you were compromised with alien technology?” Clint asked, not liking this one bit. 

“Yes.”

“And it allows you to —?” 

Elizabeth exchanged a glance with Vala. They were smiling politely at each other, keeping their eyes on the people around them and making sure nobody was in earshot. 

“You wouldn’t be able to take me down. Not with guns, arrows or any kind of weapon you know of, and not with your own strength,” she said. 

“That sounds like someone I know,” Clint gave her a serious look. She looked fragile, with light skin and dark hair pinned in an elegant hairdo. She might have been a ballerina, yet she was telling him she was potentially deadly and dangerous. He remembered her as a diplomat, eloquent, competent and steely-nerved, but she hadn’t been deadly. 

But, Clint was very familiar with the fact that a woman’s looks weren’t related to potential danger. 

“I think she could beat up your supersoldier friend,” Vala smirked and winked at Elizabeth. “Maybe we could organize a match later?”

Elizabeth glanced at her with mild fondness. “Vala —”

“I know, I know! These are Serious Things. I am well aware, only you’re ruining my style,” Vala smirked and Elizabeth look turned into a mixture of chiding and almost amused. “Oh please. You wouldn’t have had fun without me.”

“Okay, I’ll admit that is true,” Elizabeth said and then turned to Clint again. He wondered if they would be a decent if not pleasant company if circumstances were different. 

“I can access computers,” Elizabeth continued. 

“You mean hack them,” Clint offered with a false smile. By all means, they were having a nice chat as far as anyone else was concerned. 

“I prefer accessing information I need through the least obtrusive means possible.”

“Like using  _my_  access codes?”

“Yes,” she said evenly. The nerve this woman, had he thought. Or perhaps, the desperation. He wasn’t sure which was driving her actions yet. “Which I did only because SHIELD systems would detect me. Logging on as Agent Barton was far less suspicious and gives us all more time.”

“Which makes me wonder how you found out my numbers?”

“Nanite technology allows me to manipulate different things, Agent Barton. Machines, computers, weaponry... and organic matter. In other words, I’m able to access your, or anyone else’s mind.” 

Clint felt every hair on his body raise. He didn’t like this, he  _didn’t_ , no matter what justification she was trying to paint it with. 

“I am truly sorry,” she continued. “And if it’s any comfort I know what it’s like from personal experience.”

“It’s not,” Clint said. 

“That’s perfectly fair,” Elizabeth replied. “I’d like to remind you why we’re here.”

“I would like to know how Natasha fits into this,” he said because, frankly, that was the thing that kept him listening to her. She lead him to think that Natasha was in danger, she mentioned those things about memory and Clint thought about things Natasha had mentioned a few days ago — she remembered details, things from her past she thought forgotten and gone, she had nightmares that came out of nowhere and it started happening after she was knocked out. It started the next day, he remembered. 

“I suspect she was given my nanites,” Elizabeth said and a wave of solid chill went through Clint. 

If The Red Room had done that —

“You mentioned a switch,” Clint’s voice was just as dark as his mind. 

“The nanites can be turned into a switch. If someone can activate the nanites, if they can command them,” he voice became quiet but he could hear every single word over the chatter filling the room. “- and we know that it can be done —”

“No,” was all Clint could say. 

Elizabeth’s eyes locked onto his, fiercely. “There’s only one person in the world who knows how to do that.”

“Who — where is this person?” Clint was aware he didn’t sound quite right, but he didn’t give a damn. If this was all true, the things that could happen to Natasha —

Elizabeth turned to face the ongoing party. “He’s my friend,” Elizabeth paused and looked at her hands. “And I suspect they’ve got him. Also ….I’m fairly sure whoever wants to flip a switch in Natasha Romanoff’s head is after my friend, and subsequently, they’re after me too.” She looked at Clint, long and hard. “I need your help, Agent Barton,” she said. 

Clint didn’t feel like helping her, but it seemed he didn’t have many options to choose from.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuing where we left off in chapter 1.

“What is Barton doing with those two ladies?”

The question was innocent enough, but it made Tony turn around and search the crowd with his eyes. “Look over there,” Steve instructed and Tony looked in the direction Steve indicated. 

Okay, that was just plain unfair. Since when did Hawkeye turn into a ladies man? Tony narrowed his eyes, the height difference between Clint and the woman with long, shiny black hair was comical. The other woman, Tony realized, looked familiar — there was something that rung a bell, something about her posture, the way she held herself.... just something. 

And then she turned around. 

“Oh holy shit,” he said and Steve frowned at the curse. 

“What is it?”

“That woman is dead,” Tony stated, staring at none other but Elizabeth Weir. Because seriously? That woman was after his ass for so long, and then she just... vanished. A few years back he read an obituary even, a long, well written article in a newspaper, and he was surprised how much it shook him to learn that she was dead. Despite her work, despite how much trouble she gave him through her years of being an activist and anti weaponry lobbyist, Tony appreciated her. A lot. She was best of the best, dammit. 

Right now, he was in a state of mild shock. How was this even possible?

“She doesn’t look dead,” Steve countered. Tony glanced at him. 

“Well, I assume there can be exceptions,” he said and Steve rolled his eyes, but there was no real annoyance in the gesture. “That lady —,” Tony said and then fell silent and it struck him how she didn’t seem to have changed at all. Her hair was a bit longer, but everything else looked just as Tony remembered. Just like on a photograph. 

“Who is she?” Steve asked, obviously intrigued. 

“She’s a famous diplomat and anti weapons activist.”

“Ah,” Steve nodded. 

“Yes, exactly. Only, she almost convinced me making weapons was wrong.”

Steve’s eyebrows rose. “That, I’m sure, was impressive,” he said and if Tony didn’t know better, he’d say Steve was poking fun at him. Well, maybe there was some hope for Captain Icicle after all. 

“Yeah  _I know_. That’s why I’m wondering what’s Barton doing with her. I mean it’s Barton, and he’s practically... a living breathing weapon himself.” 

Steve shook his head and smirked. “Aren’t we all?”

“What?” 

“Stark,” Steve’s expression was annoyingly mild and amused, like he was talking to a child that didn’t quite understand something, but then it sobered. “Aren’t we all weapons?” 

“Point there, Captain Awesome,” Tony pushed the sudden wave of emotions into the back of his mind. It still prickled him from there, mind you. Steve Rogers might have slept through the most exciting years of the twentieth century and still didn’t know the difference between the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but damn him, he could throw a punch with things he said. “Okay, time to sweep in and sweep those ladies off their feet,” Tony nudged Steve. “I’m going to introduce you to the amazing Doctor Weir.” 

And thus Tony crossed the room and made his way towards Clint and his two companions, and Steve followed. 

“Ladies.... Barton,” Tony greeted and when Weir turned around she didn’t seem surprised to see him. At all. But, she probably shouldn’t be considering it was Tony’s party after all. The other woman whom he didn’t know had something in her eyes that made him uncomfortable, despite her insanely attractive appearance. She was standing very close to Barton who looked... well, there was something strange about him. 

But then, Barton could be strange in general. (Just like Romanoff. Talk about a match made in heaven.) 

“Hello, Tony,” Elizabeth greeted and smiled. 

“Hello to you too, Elizabeth. It’s, ah, quite a surprise to see you.”

“To see me alive, you mean?” she replied, sounding pretty amused, although there was an edge to her words. 

“Well, actually yes,” he said and narrowed his eyes at her. The smirk she threw his way was dark and Tony didn’t like it very much. “I didn’t expect to see you at my party.”

“Funny thing, Tony, I was invited. Except if someone else is handling the invitations for you?” she smirked again. “It can be quite embarrassing if you don’t know who’s coming to your own party. Even dangerous,” she added and her voice gained a shadow Tony definitely didn’t like. 

“Pepper would have told me if she —” he stopped before he was able to finish. Of course Pepper would have told him. Pepper knew who Elizabeth Weir was. Or is. 

“Perhaps it’s not Miss Potts who handled the invitations?” Elizabeth’s eyebrow rose and Tony felt a wave of unease go through his body. He didn’t like this, because how the fuck was she supposed to know Pepper was handling invitations? He was too smart and his mind was too quick and there weren’t many options. Steve tensed slightly next to him and Barton just didn’t look normal. 

“What are you —” he gave her a bright, fake smile, “trying to say?” 

Her own smile matched his; it was equally too bright and equally fake. 

“You’re a smart man, Tony Stark. I always thought that.”

“I’m not sure I like what you’re saying.”

“It’s not me, Tony, that you should be worried about,” she deadpanned.

That was when Barton decided to join the conversation. 

“I’d hear what she has to say, Stark,” he said. There was something odd about him. Some sense of urgency on his face, and he didn’t look comfortable at all. 

“I would add my agreement to that suggestion,” the tall, dark haired woman standing next to Barton suddenly spoke. She had an accent Tony couldn’t place and a smile which reminded him of a cat who played with a canary. Steve shifted next to him, and Tony sensed the supersoldier was alert and ready to act. Act how, Tony thought, considering these were two women in elegant evening gowns acting like they’ve been threatening him. 

Well, almost. 

“We will require a less occupied space for the conversation,” Elizabeth stated. Tony looked from her to Barton, who looked like one of his bows. Which was Not Good. 

“And what if I don’t like you crashing my party after you apparently hacked your way into invitations? And even more importantly, what if I really don’t like your attitude right now?”

“Stark —” 

“Not now, Rogers —” 

“He’s trying to tell you that you should know there’s a gun pointed at my back,” Barton said. 

So the tall one didn’t find him handsome after all? Just available to shoot at, apparently. 

“Elizabeth Weir,” Tony let his face turn into an expressionless mask. “This is not how I remember you working.”

“Desperate times require desperate measures,” she said and then looked at Barton. “I’m truly sorry.”

“I bet,” Barton answered. 

“She means it, honey,” the dark haired woman added and poked his back. 

At that point Steve made a move. It was just like him, to try to intervene in this bizarre situation, even though it meant attacking a woman — but he was promptly prevented from reaching his goal.

By another woman. 

May it never be said that women weren’t capable of kicking ass. Steve obviously knew that, if yelp he let out was any indication. 

“Hey, what —?” 

“I’m sorry Captain Rogers,” Elizabeth said as she held him, her slender fingers wrapped securely around his wrist and all Tony could do was watch; just watch as her schooled expression of a diplomat became something steely and determined, something he knew way too well. “I’m not here to play games, Tony. People are in danger,” she said and that did sound like her — the words were right but the melody was all wrong. 

“I believe that,” Tony replied sarcastically. 

“Stark,” Barton sounded like he was losing patience and it actually seemed that the gun poking his back wasn’t the thing that disturbed him. “It’s Natasha,” he said darkly, but there was an undertone to his voice, one that sounded pretty desperate. Tony looked at Steve. 

“I don’t like this either, but it seems they have a tactical advantage,” Steve said grimly. 

“Actually, it may not be us who have the advantage,” Elizabeth said and there was a warning in her tone. She eyed Tony and he looked back at her, hating the way his hand was being forced. “Do we have an agreement?” she asked and Tony found himself nodding, wondering where Pepper was, and where the hell Banner and Thor were. And speaking of his team, where the hell was Romanoff??

*

“Start explaining,” Tony said and Elizabeth smiled inwardly. He was mostly like the man she remembered — he was impatient when he was uncertain, and he definitely didn’t like when strings were taken from his hands. She looked at Barton as he took his gun from Vala’s hand and placed it back into it’s strap under his jacket. Elizabeth couldn’t blame him for being pissed off, but she had to get this back on track. 

“For the record, I don’t trust you,” Tony said, looking at Elizabeth and she nodded slowly. Of course he didn’t trust her. She didn’t really need him to, as long as he, and all of them, did what she asked. 

“I understand that. Yet, you’re reasonably worried about the things I told you,” she said and Barton nodded. 

“What things?” Tony snapped. 

“Nanotechnology,” she said and she could see how Tony’s face changed a few shades, going towards pale. He looked at Barton, and then back at her. 

“Nanotechnology?” Steve Rogers repeated. His patience wasn’t spent yet, Elizabeth thought, but he wanted answers. Of course they wanted answers; anyone in their position would. 

“I assume you’re familiar with the fact that Natasha Romanoff was injected with nanites at your latest mission, when you walked into a trap?” Elizabeth said. 

“How do you know that?” Tony asked, presumably before his mind could censor him and tell him not to give her information. 

“Because she was given  _my_  nanites,” she said and extended her hand towards Vala. 

“Elizabeth —” 

“The knife, Vala,” she insisted. Vala looked at her for a few moments more, then shrugged and pulled her skirt up her thigh. Barton rolled his eyes, Tony muttered something and Steve Rogers blushed, but she had no time to think about that. She looked straight at Tony Stark; in fact, she knew Tony Stark longer than she knew people whom she considered closest to her. (at least once.) She stretched out her palm. “I had been involved with a secret program aiming to defend Earth from alien threats. You’re, I assume, very aware of their existence.”

“Mildly put,” Tony answered. 

“During this mission I was infected by nanotechnology used by an aggressive alien race... and compromised by it,” Elizabeth said, and with that she cut her palm open without even blinking. She could see Vala flinching next to her, heard Steve Rogers’ “hey” and had seen the expression on Tony’s face. 

But when her palm healed in less than a minute, everyone was mute and grim and it was hard to truly look at anyone. 

Vala came closer and put her hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder. 

“I hate when you do that,” she said and squeezed for a moment and Elizabeth nodded. 

“Seeing is believing,” Elizabeth said, looking back at Tony. 

“What the  _hell_  did just happen?” he asked with just a hint of fear on his face. Elizabeth was glad it wasn’t something else. 

“The  _same thing_  that happened to Natasha,” Barton said, giving Tony a sharp look and the stared at each other for a couple of moments. Steve Rogers looked like some things were finally in the clear. 

“That doesn’t mean anything! It doesn’t mean she knows anything about Romanoff —” Tony began. 

“Oh I know plenty, Tony. I know she was a Red Room agent, I know she now works for an organization that’s been trying to eliminate her for years, and it’s all thanks to your friend Clint Barton, isn’t it?” Barton flinched a little and Elizabeth thought she ought to learn how to deal with people reacting to her like this. “She’s dangerous, she’s competent and her previous owners would like to have her back. She’s been an effective killing puppet, however they can control her with the help of nanotechnology that just healed my hand much better than with their mind games —

All three men paled and Elizabeth continued talking. 

“But they don’t want just her, Tony. Nanotechnology can  _spread_. You can probably imagine how, given all your knowledge. They can have multiple perfect little assassins who do what they’re told when the switch is flipped. Do you understand now?”

It seemed that he did understand, but he was refusing to believe it. She understood that, she really did, but she also needed him to believe her. 

“It’s a bit hard to trust someone who’s pointing a gun at you,” Steve interjected, crossing his arms and looking at both Elizabeth and Vala. 

“Even more difficult to get someone to listen to you, when they really don’t want to,” Vala shot back. “Especially when we’re on a tight time schedule here.”

“You know who I am, Tony,” Elizabeth started. 

“Well, no. Not any more,” he replied grimly. “You used to be the person who thought peace was always the best solution.”

“And I still think that,” Elizabeth realized that she was beginning to shake. “But if you don’t believe me, perhaps you’ll believe the scientific data. Call your friend Banner.” 

Tony snorted. “You really think that’s a good idea?”

“Do you really think he can hurt me?” she shot back. “Look, Stark. Your friend’s life is at stake.  _My_  friends’ lives are at stake. If this goes to hell you will have a lot more problems than one former diplomat going crazy,” she countered. 

“If I might cut in,” Steve’s voice tentatively broke the tense silence that filled the room. “I’d like to point out that I haven’t seen Natasha for hours,” he said, his voice and face worried when he looked at Barton. “I think if all of this is true, then we need to find her.”

Tony stayed silent for a little while longer. 

“Fine,” he said. “I spent enough time at negotiation tables with you to know a few things.”

“Such as?” Barton asked. 

“She never walks in lacking arguments. Whatever her intention is.... there’s something behind it, and I think it’s best if we know what.”

Clint nodded and looked at Steve. 

“Call Banner. We need to find Tasha.”

 

*

 

“So you call her Tasha,” Vala observed as they walked through the corridor. Vala was tall and elegant, and Clint thought she would look elegant and like royalty anywhere, doing anything, but right now her dress and make up were making the impression complete. 

It was a hell of an impression. He was pretty sure he had never seen someone like her. Natasha was a different kind of perfect image designed to make you believe dangerous things. This woman was similar, but at the same time radically different and it unnerved him. 

“I call her lot of things,” Clint was making sure that he was out of hand’s reach. Vala smiled like he told her the most amusing thing in the world. 

“I really don’t want to be on your bad side, honey. Or anyone’s really. I had a lifetime of that, so —” 

“Well, you certainly know how to make an impression,” Clint answered. 

“I do, don’t I? I did learn from the best,” she said. 

“I’m not sure I want to know.”

“It’s a classified story, honey. I’m not sure I can tell you,” she said, her tone still deceptively light as they stood in front of the elevator. “But for the record, I know.”

“You know what?” he asked, but she didn’t reply to him immediately. 

“There’s a saying... every doctor should try their own medicine. Something along those lines,” she said and when she turned to look at him, her eyes were heavy. He knew that sort of look, that kind of darkness — he’d been hanging around dark people all his life. He saw one in the mirror on a regular basis. Darkness knew darkness and this woman was definitely more than a good looking thief with really quick hands. “I know my medicines, sweetheart. Each and every one of them.”

Clint looked at her wrist, noticing again the weird looking bracelet she wore. 

“That’s a weapon,” he said, because he knew how to recognize a woman wearing one.

“Yes,” she said. “And it’s not one you’ve seen yet, right?”

“If I did, I would have been more careful,” he gave her a smirk. She smirked in return. 

“I bet. You have good eyes,” she said. 

“And you think flattery will get you somewhere,” he answered. The elevator door opened in front of them and they stepped in. Clint was still making sure he was out of Vala’s reach. 

“Oh no. I can tell when someone is spoken for,” Vala said, smiling in a self satisfactory way, and Clint just didn’t have the mental capacity to enter another verbal duel with her. The fact that she was right about this was beside the point. He didn’t advertise his relationship with Natasha, but right now he had bigger worries. “And flattery isn’t what got you in trouble in the first place. I was asking for help.”

“Remind me not to be a knight in shiny armour again, will you?” 

The door opened to reveal a completely dark, quiet hallway. 

“You might need to do that just one more time,” Vala said. “I would hate to see the death of chivalry, though.”

“We’re not after a damsel in distress, Vala. Or a princess either.”

“Honey, you need to learn that no woman is a damsel and every woman is a princess,” she said and he was tempted to disagree, just to hear what she would say. She was a piece of work, all right. She only seemed cheerful, and she definitely did have a sense of humor he could appreciate and even enjoy if the circumstances were different. But there was also a ruthlessness to her, an attitude that reminded him of Natasha, only she didn’t seem vulnerable in the same way Natasha was. “Do you have a thing for darkness?” she asked. 

“Not really,” Clint said as they stood near the elevator. Not the literal darkness anyway. He needed the light to see. The hallway was lit only by the lights coming from outside, the blinking of other buildings around Stark Tower. It was too dark and just not usual. “Listen,” he said as he took a tentative lead, debating with himself if he should ask JARVIS to turn on the lights. If Natasha was here and she turned them off, there was a reason for it. “I would appreciate if you could tell me if we’re on the same page here.”

“You mean if I’m going to pull a gun on you again?” Vala asked sweetly and he threw her a look to which she responded with innocent flutter of eyelashes. 

Seriously, this woman. Clint was staring to wonder if there was any possibility that she was related to Tony Stark.

“I would appreciate if you’d keep guns and other lethal objects away from me, please,” he said. 

“I think that can be arranged,” she said. “I can warn you if need be.”

“I’m relieved,” he replied sarcastically. 

“You’ll be fine,” she said. “Where are we going?”

“This is where my and Natasha’s apartments are,” he said, still walking slowly along the wall and looking around. “We’re obviously looking for her.”

“You think she is here?” Vala asked and stopped next to him as Clint paused his steps as well. He was thinking about which direction to take, to his or her apartment.

“She could be,” Clint answered, remembering that he could simply ask JARVIS, but he didn’t want to make unnecessary noise. Natasha wasn’t doing well, but even in bad shape, she wasn’t the one to leave her post. She was supposed to be at the party, and if she had gone away, it certainly wasn’t for a trivial reason. She was forced to leave. Clint didn’t enjoy thinking about possible scenarios, but after the things he’d seen in the last few days since she was attacked, and the things he’d heard from Elizabeth Weir, he had the chills. “Before we proceed I need to make something clear,” he said. 

“What is that?”

“I go in first. I call the shots, I decide when to move,” he turned to give Vala a stern look, but he didn’t meet any resistance now. 

“Fine,” she said. 

“It better be.”

“I’m not here to screw this up, Clint,” she said. “You know her and I don’t,” she said, and Clint picked up on the undertone in her voice. Something was telling him they were on a tight schedule. Somewhere a clock was ticking and he wasn’t sure what would happen when time ran out, but it probably wasn’t good. 

“No sudden moves,” he said, not sure what to expect. He braced himself and continued onward, towards his apartment. Natasha had her own, yes, but they both spent more time in his in times of distress. They’ve been sleeping in his bed ever since the goddamn mission, and he would find her in his kitchen after each nightmare. There he hugged her gently and convinced her to come back to bed, and she’d tell him she was cold and that she dreamt of a dark place with long, empty corridors made of metal. 

Each time it felt like she was slipping away through his fingers. 

When they reached his door Clint realized it was halfway opened, inviting him into a deeper darkness. He knew his space, every single centimeter of it, he knew how it felt and how the sound echoed off the walls he started to call home. He knew she was in there, he could feel her, just as he could feel she wasn’t doing okay. 

“Natasha?” he called but there was no answer. Still, he knew where she was. Maybe it was the hitched sound of her breathing that he was aware of only later, but he found her behind the kitchen counter, where he usually found her after her nightmares. She was standing still, an outline of her body tense and dark against the bleakness of the dim light streaming through the window. “Nat’” he called gently when she didn’t move. Behind him Vala was motionless and still, and thankfully quiet. “Nat, talk to me.”

Then, after silence that stretched too long, her voice finally came. 

“Go away, Clint,” she said. 

“The hell I will.”

“I’m not really feeling well, Barton —” 

“I can help you,” he countered. There was a sound of disbelief, a doomed sound that made his heart twist in his chest, but he pressed on. “I know what’s going on.”

She hissed a breath through her teeth, and it sounded like she was in pain. “This isn’t one of those times when I’m going to shake out of it,” she said. 

“I know,” he replied, darkness slipping into his voice. 

“Then you know the way to help me.”

“Fuck, no, Tash. Nobody is going to die tonight.”

“My mind is. I’m falling apart, Barton,” she managed, and she rarely called him Barton. It was a signal, a warning flare, he knew. 

“I need lights, Tasha. I need to see you,” he said softly, and he could feel and hear her move, almost like she slipped and caught herself before she fell. 

“I — I don’t want to —” 

He took a few steps closer, loud enough for her to register that he was there, nearer to her. 

“When Loki took my mind I couldn’t see straight. And then I saw you,” he said, unplanned and uncalculated. Her breath hitched and he thought, felt she was scared, just as scared as he was. “JARVIS, please turn on the lights? But not too bright,” he instructed and in the next moment the room filled with mild glow. “Look at me Tasha,” he said, his voice was gentle but still firm. 

She did. She raised her head and looked him straight in the eye and he could see the struggle, the pain and the fear. “It’s not your mind,” he said. “It’s not, I promise. You were given something.” 

He thought he could see relief, and he knew she believed him. Her eyes stayed on his, and he tried to give her strength and all the encouragement he could without coming any closer to her, because the way she stood there, her posture and the set of her shoulders were screaming warnings. So he remained in his spot even when the thing he wanted to do the most was to pull her out of the nightmare she was stuck in. 

“Who is she?” Natasha asked and Clint realized he nearly forgot about Vala. 

“Someone who can help,” he said. Natasha stared at Vala for awhile longer, and Clint kept his eyes steady on his partner, his best friend and the woman he loved. Finally, her eyes returned to his. 

 

*

Her head had not felt clear for days now, in a way she hadn’t experienced before. There were dreams, nightmares and things that felt like memories, but Natasha was doubtful those memories were hers. Were they somehow planted? Aimed to shake her up and make her fall apart from the inside? She didn’t have any knowledge of a place surrounded by a large mass of water that seemed like an ocean, long metallic corridors and beeping machines and panels filling dark rooms. She hadn’t been blown up in an explosion and hit by a mass of broken glass, and she didn’t recognize the faces that flashed in front of her mind’s eye. That didn’t belong to her. How was it in her head, then? Why did she dream of these things, of being strapped to a white bed in a cold white room, calling for someone who never came? 

Clint’s arm steadied her when she finally let him come close. There was a constant feeling under her skin, something like an itch, a knowledge of something that didn’t belong there. She felt like she might lose it at any point, lose her mind, her control, her sense of self, and she didn’t want Clint or anyone to be close, yet it was too hard to tear herself away. She’d wake from a dream and when he showed up, looking for her, she would let herself fall against sensations that were familiar and grounding. 

Natasha carried the shoes in her hand, walking barefoot and not minding the cold. There was light and there were people in Bruce’s lab — Tony, Steve, Bruce and a woman. A woman she didn’t know. Only she did. 

Then she remembered. (It  _felt_  like remembering.)

Natasha stopped at the door. 

“It’s okay,” Clint said, his hold firm and assuring. “She won’t hurt you.”

“Who are you?,” Natasha demanded, cornered with the feeling of familiarity even though she never talked to this woman, never got near her. Yet, there was something like a connection she just couldn’t explain, and therefore she didn’t like it. The woman merely nodded at her words. 

“Agent Romanoff,” she used Natasha’s name as a greeting, in a way a person with power would. “I am Elizabeth Weir,” the woman said. 

“It’s okay,” Clint assured from beside her. Natasha looked around her — Bruce, Steve, Tony, they all looked like they knew something, something that just couldn’t be good. It couldn’t be okay. She looked back at Clint, but his eyes were clouded and worried.

“Tell me what’s going on,” she demanded, feeling caught between all of them. 

“We will,” Clint assured calmly. She looked back at him, finding a look that she knew, and realizing that he was trying to hide away the fear. 

“First allow me to say that I know who you are, Agent Romanoff,” Elizabeth Weir said. 

“I remember you were a diplomat,” Natasha replied, finding the details at the back of her mind. They were coming back with strange ease and precision — the mission, her task, the way she stalked the diplomat and tried to shoot her, and three men who prevented her. But it was blurry, like many Red Room missions had been (they messed with her mind because if she didn’t know, she couldn’t give information to anyone, right? Right.) The familiarity was odd, though, it felt so certain and clear and Natasha recoiled from it, because it could have been a bait, something they designed to convince her, drag her into her downfall. 

Then she remembered another thing. Another startling detail that came out of nowhere. 

_Clint_  was there. 

“How —?” she looked at Clint wide eyed. How could she remember that now?

“I can help with that, Agent Romanoff,” Elizabeth said softly and Natasha turned to face her. “You were attacked two weeks ago, is that right?”

Natasha nodded and stared. “You were given something,” Elizabeth continued, repeating what Clint had said earlier, but even though it was familiar it did nothing to settle her. “Infected with something.” 

Natasha didn’t move but she gripped Clint’s hand tighter. She stared at the woman, expecting the words to fall, wondering if it was a slow poison or something to gradually take her mind away, erode her brain functions and make her believe that lies were truth, and truth were lies. She’d been given drugs before, had been wrecked and shattered and left to gather pieces of herself and mend them back together, and she still wondered sometimes if some things ended up in wrong places after her repairs. But this, this was different and she didn’t feel like spinning in the vertigo of hallucinogens. She felt like she was fading instead. 

“I assume you know what nanotechnology is,” Elizabeth said and Natasha’s mind stilled. 

She did. She did know, and this was not the answer she was expecting. The Red Room used nanotechnology on her and it was one of rare things that have been useful, because it helped her body repair itself and heal faster than a normal human body would. “It can be designed to simply keep you healthy and help you heal —”Elizabeth continued. “Like yours does. Or, it can be used to control and manipulate,” Elizabeth said and briefly looked away. Natasha noticed the uneasy shift in the room, the way Steve looked, and Tony’s sympathetic face. 

“Are you saying someone infected me with … nanotechnology that can control me?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth replied, simple and straightforward, and somehow Natasha preferred to be told about it like this, straight to her face without attempts to make it look better, or less dangerous than it sounded. 

Then, she realized, this woman knew what she was talking about. 

“Does it —?”

“It does,” Elizabeth answered before Natasha could even finish the question. “You’re good at resisting. That’s why it hasn't worked yet, because your mind is trained and you know how to resist.” Then she answered what Natasha meant to ask next. ”The nanotechnology you’ve been given was taken from me,” she explained. 

“You might dream things. You might have... experienced flashbacks which aren’t yours,” she continued and what Natasha felt was not relief but understanding of a bitter, necessary kind. 

“Are they yours?” she asked. 

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. 

“Did this happen to you?” Tony interrupted. “This sort of —”

“Yes. Well, not exactly,” Elizabeth said. “It wasn’t the same; like I said, my mind wasn’t trained for this.”

“What happened to you, then?” Tony pressed and Elizabeth looked uncomfortable, like she was facing the thing she didn’t want to recall. 

Natasha could understand that sentiment. 

Elizabeth didn’t answer. She looked at Natasha, and there were things, dark, sad, lonely things that called out to her. 

“It’s not, by the way,” Elizabeth said then and explained. “Death is not the worst thing that could happen to someone. I think you’ll agree.”

“Yes,” Natasha found herself saying. 

No, her mind said.  _Don’t trust. Don’t trust because it could be false, it could all be a trap_. She looked at Tony, at Bruce and Steve and then finally turned to Clint. He nodded, slowly, and she knew this wasn’t something he had not thought through. He was her eyes, he was the one on the lookout, the one who talked in her ear from the rooftops, telling her which way out was safe. The boys, they were there to fight alongside her, they had her back. 

_You’re not alone anymore._

She looked back at Elizabeth, wondering if it worked two ways, if this woman could see the bits of her, where she ended and where she begun, and things she’d done, even as Natasha felt she was slipping from her own grip, losing threads of herself.

“I know you have no reason to trust me,” Elizabeth said, and it felt like the mask fell. It sounded open and vulnerable and Natasha wondered what was at stake for her. “I know what it’s like to be controlled. Not in the same way you were, but I know,” she said, and it sounded as honest as it could be, because this woman looked so uncomfortable and yet — it was hard to put her finger on it. “You can help me and I can help you. I know how to fight them off,” she paused after she made her offering and Natasha felt her desperation so clearly. “You can help me bring back my friend,” she said, and this was something Natasha was comfortable with, a trade, and exchange of favors. 

She wasn’t even aware when she accepted her hand, only that it felt necessary. 

And she still held onto Clint. 

“Tell me.”

 

*

 

“It’s...” Natasha blinked against the sun reflecting off the water surface. “Oh God.” She recognized the place even though she didn’t know where she was. It was familiar, the spot from the dreams and flashes — the metal railing under her hands and vast sea in front and everywhere her eye could reach. And it was warm, wonderfully warm and bright, with distant breeze fluttering around them. “Where are we?” 

Elizabeth was beside her. She didn’t smile, didn’t move, even though her eyes were filled with emotions and Natasha felt these things. It seemed that she could. This was her home. 

It was something neither of them had — Natasha in the past, Elizabeth in the present. 

“You’re right,” Elizabeth said, still looking at the distance. “This was my home.”

So she did feel it. 

It was strange and it was intrusive and Natasha didn’t like it. 

“What happened?” she asked, because she had to know, understand, she had to get rid of it. 

“We were attacked,” she said, and Natasha’s mind supplied the images; crashes and shouts and the explosion; space ships and the city — it was a city — floating in blackness of space. Space, she thought and a bitter taste rose in her mouth as she remembered scanning the skies for Tony, and staring at that same blackness. “I was hurt and should have died. Only, the nanites already existed in my bloodstream from an attack that happened months before. The attack when they almost overtook my mind and body.” 

“When I was injured …” Elizabeth’s voice trailed off. “I should have died. I wish I did,” she looked at Natasha then. “Rodney — our chief scientist, he didn’t want to let me die. He …. switched on the nanites and they repaired the damage, repaired me and took over my body. They’re a part of me now; in my bloodstream, in my bones, my hair.... and if he turned them off, I would die. If not, then I can exist like a machine. I don’t bleed. I don’t age. It’s almost like I don’t really exist.” 

Natasha nodded slowly against the chill that ran down her spine.“Did they — do they —?” 

Elizabeth shook her head. “No, not yet. I don’t think so, at least. At this point you can still defeat them. They will become dormant then,” she said. “And harmless to you.”

“If someone doesn’t reactivate them.”

Elizabeth nodded. “But you can still control them. Like every part of yourself,” she said but Natasha felt like she knew better. 

“It doesn’t sound like you’re convinced.”

Elizabeth looked down and closed her eyes. 

“Conviction... it’s hard when almost everyone turns their back on you, Agent Romanoff.” 

Natasha tilted her head to the side. “Didn’t you have friends here?”

“I did. But I let myself feel bitter about everything that happened, and let them feel guilty,” she searched Natasha’s eyes then. “I wouldn’t advise that, Agent Romanoff.”

There was a brief silence after which Elizabeth continued. 

“I know you don’t like this. But —” she looked toward the sea and smiled a little, and it was a bitter, wistful smile. “You never know what will happen next. What scientific solutions can be thought of. This place here has taught me that... that nothing is impossible.” 

The look in Elizabeth’s eyes when she turned around made Natasha’s chest hurt. 

“You just have to believe it, Agent Romanoff.”

And then there were images and memories, Elizabeth’s memories, Natasha realized. Dark and scary, frightening images, things so similar to her ghosts and demons. She looked at Elizabeth realizing that she didn’t like this either, realized that her home wasn’t real, didn’t seem real; her friends, her life, everything that made her... her. Natasha thought of Clint and she thought she could still feel the warmth of his hand, somewhere, with her. 

She thought of how it would feel for that warmth to drift away, to leave her; her memories and her mind. She thought of them, taking him away from her, scarping it all piece by piece.... Bruce’s mild manner and Tony’s obnoxious comments and Steve being lost at another thing of modern times and Thor’s reactions over wonders of Midgard. They would take them, all of them, but not physically. The Red Room worked in cruel ways; they owned you by owning your mind, your sense of self, of everything you were to yourself and people around you. They took away your place in the world and inserted themselves instead, until nothing more existed. Until he was nothing more and Clint would become a stranger she was ordered to kill, and she could see herself pulling the trigger, she could feel it heavy and cold in her hands. 

Elizabeth looked at her. 

“There isn’t much time left,” she said. Natasha looked away, and then back at the woman standing in front of her. “I need you to help me, Agent Romanoff,” she said and Natasha found herself nodding. “And yourself.”

“How?” she asked. 

“Stop running,” Elizabeth said. “You have to fight.” 

 

*

“Hey. hey, hey, I’ve got you,” Clint’s voice was hoarse and warm next to her ear when she jerked awake. “Shhhh. It’s okay, you’re okay.”

“Clint —?”

“You’re safe. Bruce checked already and you were just exhausted. You’re safe,” he said and she was about to ask, but he was there before she could have mouth the words. “All the nanites are dormant.”

“Elizabeth?”

“She said you told her everything she needed to know,” Clint pulled her close. They were in a bed, his bed (their bed) and even though it was completely dark, she found the angles and solid strength of his body around her familiar. “Stark texted. Said they got her friends to safety.” 

Natasha buried her face deeper against his chest. 

“Are you saying -?”

“Yeah, it seems you missed the show,” he replied, speaking quietly into her hair. 

She blinked in the darkness and closed her eyes, flattening her palms against his chest. “So did you,” she said, sounding too young and too scared to her own mind. “This was -”

“Nothing we were trained for, Tash,” he supplied as he stroked her hair. “Alien nanotechnology and …. mind melding, as Stark said it. Straight out of fucking Star Trek.”

“Definitely not what we were trained for,” she replied, shifting closer to him and sliding her leg between his thighs. She breathed, a breath filled with him and felt her mind ease and quiet down. “And now what?” she asked as they intertwined more closely, but without desperation this time. In her nanite induced anxiety she reached for him like in fever, only halfway aware. Her mind felt free now, clear of fog and confusion and she could hear him relax as well, as if he knew. He probably did. He could read her just as she could read him, and with his hands on her body, on her muscles, he could feel it. 

“Don’t know. Don’t care, as long as you’re okay,” he said. 

“What happens to Weir?” she asked because she couldn’t stop thinking of the woman. 

“Not sure. Stark did mention we could always use another superstrong Avenger —” 

Natasha chuckled at that. It felt like something Tony would say, and it was sweet, in a way. Only, Elizabeth Weir wasn’t shaped like that, wasn’t cut out to be a weapon like they were. 

“Doubt it,” she said to Clint, feeling content and small and not wanting to move. 

“Yeah,” he agreed and Natasha wondered if they could ever exist like this — simply like this, without risking their lives, compromising themselves. Were they really cut out to be weapons, means of destruction? And who made that choice? Who got to say what defined them? 

“Clint?” she said. 

“Yeah?” he asked and she paused. 

_Thank you for being there_ , she thought. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for staying even when I was losing my mind. Thank you for being my eyes. For being my home. But it stayed inside of her chest, along with the images of a city floating on the water and two people overlooking the sea on the balcony. She hoped they could find their way back to each other, despite the hurt and the guilt. There were so many places and people in life you could truly belong to. Losing them was not worth the hurt, or pride, and Natasha hoped Elizabeth would find her way home.

She certainly deserved it. 

She pulled Clint even closer to her and thought of the rest of their team. 

_Thank you for being my home._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Feel free to leave a comment, I truly appreciate them. :)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the prompt The Avengers/Stargate crossover. The very first thing that crossed my mind was similarity between Natasha and post - replicator Elizabeth, since there are certain themes I connect with both of them, the similar fear of not being able to control their own mind and actions since someone in the past took over and changed their perceptions of reality. Then, there's a parallel between Vala and Clint, who were both alien - controlled at one point, and I think they're similar in that, and some other aspects (also, it turned out it's fun watching them how they snark at each other). 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the story, please let me know what you thought! Every feedback will be given a loving home, I promise!


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